


of all the beginnings

by tonguetide



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Katara (Avatar)-centric, Non-Linear Narrative, Tragedy, ambiguous - Freeform, kind of a character study ig?, tribute to katara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:55:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27628489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tonguetide/pseuds/tonguetide
Summary: they tell her that she is a child. they tell her that she is a girl. they tell her that she’ll soon become a woman. they tell her that women are not meant for war.they are blind. they do not see the ice in her eyes. they do not see the fire in her heart. they see only weakness.she is made of strength.
Relationships: Katara & Sokka (Avatar), Katara & The Gaang (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 10





	of all the beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> i saw this format in a fic for a different fandom—the non-linear narrative, i mean—and i literally died because i thought it was so beautiful. hence my trying to emulate, since originality is not my strong suit lol. i think it'll be 3 chapters:)

she sits still.

she is not allowed to move. this is not her expertise. this is not her jurisdiction. this is her father’s domain. it has never been anything else—she knows that. she does not want to overstep, and she couldn’t if she tried. her father is strong, and he is canny. he understands her in ways she does not understand herself. he anticipates her decisions before she has even begun to decide them.

his face is solemn. so is her uncle’s. so is her gran-gran’s, and sokka’s, and all of the elder’s of the tribe. the children run around uncaring, unbothered, and she wants to be like them. she _should_ be like them—she is a child, too—but she carries the weight of the world, the weight of the village, the weight of the family on her shoulders, and she cannot.

she sits still when her father quietly announces his and the fleet’s imminent departure. she sits still when sokka’s protests hurt her ears. she sits still when gran-gran conspicuously drags him out of the room.

she sits still long after the council is dismissed.

///

if one word described her childhood, it would be _hers_.

she was her parents’, yes, but she was her own. she made decisions that suited herself. besides chores, she did not do thing that she did not want to do. she was selfish because she could be. she was young, and she was free.

she crossed her arms and shook her head when sokka asked her to do his laundry. she wasn’t responsible for him. she stomped her foot when he tried to convince her—“ _no_ , sokka. that’s _your_ job.”

she stayed in bed when she should be working, because the light was bright and her legs were tired. she was scolded, but it didn’t make a difference. she did the same thing the next morning.

she had a mind of her own, and a will to match. her parents loved her fire, even when it angered them.

her father learned something, as she got older. her mother did not, because she was not around to learn it.

children are not always ungovernable. some are—yes—but most are governed by some force or another: a parent, a teacher, a governess.

some are governed by life itself.

///

she goes fishing with her father on her birthday. she is five, now, and she can do things on her own—like swim and carry things and pack things and paddle down the river. she tells her father this. she is strong enough to go. she wants to go.

so they go together, and it is fun. it is fun and exciting and her cheeks are raw and red with the whipping wind and she has never felt more alive—though she hasn’t been alive long—and it is beautiful. she climbs up onto the side of the canoe because she wants to get closer to the ice, and—

the canoe jolts, and she nearly falls backward. she flails, and catches herself with ice.

her father gapes.

she cries because she still can. she has not yet reached that stage of her life where tears blot out the shine and strength of one’s character. she cries because she is still a child.

they cut the trip short in her father’s jubilation. it’s the best present he’s received, he says—a gift from the spirits themselves—and she’s confused because it’s _her_ birthday. it doesn’t matter. the people and elders and leaders gather, and they talk.

they talk for a long time, and she does not realize it then, but this is a beginning. she has been alive five years, and this is a beginning.

they talk. they talk about _her_.

she tries to wiggle her hand in the air to be called on by her father. she tries to raise her voice to be heard.

she has an opinion.

it is her life, and she is sent away.

they talk. they talk about her, without her.

see, she is not old enough. she is old enough to swim and carry things and pack things and paddle down the river, but she is not old enough to talk. she is not old enough to listen.

this is a beginning. her entire life, people talk—without her, about her—because she is not old enough. she is not wise enough. she is not strong enough. she is not rational enough.

she’ll think it’s especially funny, later—when a war has been fought and won; when she has settled in the place her heart never left—that she was never enough to talk.

after all, the problem was never hers. she was always ready to talk.

they were never willing to listen.

///

snow is white. clouds are white.

she knows snow is white, so she is confused. she knows clouds are white, so she is confused. the snow that pours from the sky is _gray_. the clouds that wisp past in strands are _black_. the sky is dark, but the ground is bright, and she drops the snowball that she is holding because she is confused.

she does not like not understanding things. comprehension is easy, certain. when something enters her mind, it does not leave. she is deductive; she processes things and stores them for later study. only things of minor irritation or inconsequential significance draw out her temper. come things of gravity, she is rational. calm.

but composure is a product of time and practice, and when she is eight, she does not understand either. she does not _want_ to understand either, because she is still selfish. she can still be selfish, because her life is hers, her world is hers—hers alone. she is a product of trifle and transience.

her reaction, then, to the rains of ash, is violent.

the world is black and white and blue that day. the ground is pale and the clouds is dark, and the snow-that-isn’t-snow cascading through the sky is gray, but it looks black against the blue. the world is black and white and blue, and all she had ever known was black and white. she’d never had to worry about a blue or a gray before, because all she had known was that she didn’t like chores, but she had to do them, and she would never, _ever_ do her brother’s, and she loved her family, and she hated the fire nation, and—

forever engrained into her mind, is her mother’s eyes. strong in ultimate weakness. fearless at someone’s complete mercy. loving in the face of hatred.

blue in a world of black and white.

///

they pull a child from an iceberg.

they are children, too, and though this is the end of a beginning, they should never in a million lifetimes have the amount of responsibility they do. but that doesn’t matter. all that matters is that she is angry and she is ranting and the ice is breaking and her brother is shouting and the ice is glowing and it is splitting and there is a sky bison and there is a child.

he is sick. he is cold.

he is an airbender.

///

if two words described her childhood, they would be _hers_ and _short_.

tragedy steals innocence. tragedy weeds out naivety. tragedy is cruel.

she’ll think, later, that maybe the day of black snow was bad luck. that maybe—had the fates bat a different eyelash—her father would have received warning of the ships coming for their village. that maybe they would have been able to hide her mother, hide their family, hide their people. that maybe their warriors’ departure would have been delayed, and they would have matched the fire nation man for man.

as it is, they are no match. it is pathetic, really, how inferior they are. they are not matched man for man. they are not matched at all, except for one man and one woman, but the man resolves that problem with the evil in his eyes and the flames in his fists. the woman’s last words are to her child— _i’ll handle this_. she spends the rest of her life trying to embody them, trying to live up to them— _she’ll handle this_. she’ll handle everything, anything, to atone for what she could not handle—standing there, trembling, fearful, _pathetic_ , and running, running, sprinting to find her father, her brother, because she could not handle it, she could not handle him—him, the monster.

she’ll think, too, that the world had it out for her from a very young age. searching for weakness within her, trying to weed it out. trying, maybe, to prepare her for what she would never— _could_ never—expect. for what she would not be prepared for. for what only years of discipline and selflessness and charity could drill into her mind.

her tragedy was a curse, yes.

it was also a blessing.

she doesn’t know which is worse.

///

the day of her birth is bright, and it is white, and it is beautiful. there is no falling snow. there is only sunshine. the elders say it is an omen—she will shine as bright as the sun. she will light her family and the village and maybe, even, the world.

but omens mean _future_ , and all she will think about for years to come is the _now_. in fact, she will live in the present until she is eight.

then she will live in the past until she is fifteen.

the elders also say that she will be as powerful as the sun. they say that she will be bold and loud and insistent—even to the point of obstinance. it is a blessing, and it is a curse—what isn’t?

she cares nothing for the elders when she is born. neither does her brother, who gazes at her with wonder and love, just like he will for the rest of his life; who, for the first time, feels the visceral need to _protect_ and _defend,_ stronger than anything else, just like he will for the rest of his life. he learns to be selfless earlier than she does, but it is a different kind of selflessness. she will put _everyone_ before herself, he will only put her.

the day is bright, and it is beautiful. the sun casts the white world in a golden shade, and a brother, a life, a world lay in front of her.

it is _a_ beginning. there are many—when the council talks about her bending, when she discovers an airbender, when her father leaves her, when her mother leaves her for longer—but this is one.

she blinks open her eyes.


End file.
